


yours, leaping

by mriaow



Category: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (2018)
Genre: Epistolary, F/F, References to War, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:55:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21826921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mriaow/pseuds/mriaow
Summary: Juliet wondered, of course, about the relationship and where Elizabeth was and why Kit should be living with Dawsey - but then she knew firsthand the new families the war made. The people it pulled apart and pushed together, and the new ways of living they all had to find, or make. When she thought of it that way, she didn’t wonder in the least.
Relationships: Dawsey Adams/Juliet Ashton
Comments: 11
Kudos: 27
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	yours, leaping

**Author's Note:**

  * For [celaenos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/celaenos/gifts).

> Happy Yuletide! I took your Rule 63 suggestion and ran with it - I've read the book as well but wasn't clear on if you had or not, so I tweaked some of the material from the book to include but stuck with the movie's plot, since it's slightly different. This isn't a scene-by-scene reconstruction so it doesn't include all the movie moments because I wanted to give you something new. But where there are moments missing, feel free to sub in the scenes from the movie! Given how epistolary the movie and book are, I didn't see a way around a tiny bit of first person perspective but I hope that's alright since the majority isn't. Enjoy!
> 
> The poem Dawsey sings is 'La Victime' by George Metivier, a Guernesais poet:  
"Veis-tu l’s écllaers, os-tu l’tounère?  
Lé vent érage et la née a tché!  
Les douits saont g’laïs, la gnièt est nère -  
Ah, s’tu m’ôimes ouvre l’hus - ch’est mé!"  
(Do you see the lightning, do you hear the thunder?  
The wind is raging and the snow has fallen!  
The brooks are frozen, the night is dark -  
Ah, if you love me open the door - it’s me!)

**From Juliet to Sidney  
22nd May 1946**

Dear Sidney;

I can hardly believe I’ve only been on Guernsey for just shy of a day - already it seems as though so much has happened, as though I have been permanently changed after just these two handfuls of hours. (And no, I’m not just saying that to convince you that this trip was a good business idea; although I believe you’ll see it has been.)

I’ve made it to the island, despite Mark’s level best. I admit it feels rather churlish of me to be so reticent in the face of his affections. I’ve never been one not to know a good thing when I see it, and goodness knows the other assorted women of London no doubt feel the same way, but here I am, currently Mark-less and hoping I haven’t just submitted my name for a future of Mark-lessness and solitude.

Of course I had quite a while to stew over my feelings - or lack thereof - on the matter, as the voyage from Weymouth was forgettable in all but its nastiness. But soon enough I saw the island rise up to meet me, giving a greeting all its own - a true one, genuine in its graceful cliffs and small port and not just as a reprieve from the dreaded mail boat.

I had been anxious (I can hear your sarcasm across the channel: “You, anxious? Surely you jest”) that I would struggle to speak with the Society, but of course as luck would have it, it was the work of a few moments before I more or less stumbled over one of the Society members (well, more than one - but more on that later). Eben and Eli were immediately gracious, the two of them more alike than I’m sure they know, two gentlemanly stalwarts in each others’ image.

I attended the Society meeting that evening, where my anxiety from the boat proved prescient - not only was Kit suspicious of me, as only a child reserving her opinion can be, but Amelia too seemed to have misgivings over my presence. Which is entirely fair, interloper that I am. Just because I am sure in my good intentions does not mean they’re welcomed or appropriate. It seems I won’t be writing that article after all, although of course you know I’m not one to give up hope just yet! 

(I can hear you here also, scolding me for saving the best for last and trying to deny you your dessert. Very well.)

Of course I had been rather desperate to learn what Dawsey would be like, after so many letters. Lacking anything else to substitute in my mind all this time, I suppose I should admit that I had resorted to imagining Charles Lamb in a wig. (I HEAR YOUR LAUGHTER, SIDNEY, AND I SHAN’T RESPOND TO IT.) And of course she isn’t, she is entirely herself, but she does have the same steady gaze, a surety to her face and presence despite a slight limp. I first met her helping a crew fix the roof of the hotel, although of course I did not know it was her at the time. It was an odd moment - I felt I knew her instantly, not as Dawsey per se, as we had not yet been introduced, but as someone who knew me.

Very well, enough digressions, you want the wigless recounting: Dawsey is dark, her hair close-cropped brown curls shot through with the light of the island and the weight of the war. It was such a unique and fetching look that I briefly considered whether I could pull off the same shorter style, but abandoned it instantly: only Dawsey is Dawsey, and I feel that’s as it should be. Although as thin as the rest of them, she wore it as a coiled wire stretched over broad shoulders and a straight back. Her strength was evident, as though she could carry not just slate tiles, or Kit, but any load you asked. She has a serious, careful look, but I was lucky enough to catch a smile more than once, as warm as one could hope for.

We were a merry bunch once the meeting was underway, all chiming in and getting carried away, and as soon as I felt the relief at knowing my excitement and anxiety had been shared, it dissipated completely, as though all it needed was the company. 

Although Kit maintained her distrusting distance initially, I played my trick of appearing to sever my thumb in half, repeating it but not performing it, until she could bear it no longer and insisted I teach her how to do it. She knows her mind, that one: she’ll decide if and when to let you in and absolutely no spinach at dinner, not for her! She questioned me today regarding my feelings towards various rodents and assorted vermin, whom she holds in high esteem. If you were at all curious, we are in agreement as to their cleverness and necessity, although of course she asserts a higher level of enthusiasm. I have evidently passed muster, and needed to write you at once to crow over my victory.

I feel I’ve told you hardly anything, but I see the letter is already quite long. Just how I feel - holding so much in so few hours. I suppose I’ll have to keep you in suspense! How Dickensian of me, to update you in installments.

Love,

Juliet

-

What Juliet hadn’t told Sidney - in no small part because she wasn’t sure she’d be able to convey it - was that the island itself was proving to be nearly as fascinating as the people she’d come to see. The farmland was as quintessential as it was familiar, but it was surrounded by the presence of the sea. The smell of it, the sounds of the birds, the taste of salt in the air and on the skin. An island in every way. A land unto itself.

The day on the beach with Kit and Dawsey, Juliet felt as though she had to get as close to it as she possibly could. She kicked off her shoes the moment she could to feel he cold sand between her toes, delicious and nearly indecent. Her face soaked up every drop of sunlight as though she could never get enough. She could feel more than hear Dawsey laughing at her as she stood with her eyes closed and arms outstretched, the thrum of the ocean echoing across her body. 

“Do they not have the sun in London?”

Juliet grinned at Dawsey, who looked indulgent and in high humour, entirely at home in a worn blue wool sweater. She seemed to wear the entire island around her, a part of its landscape and homespun goddess of it: salt and comfort and a sense of ease and knowledge with every rock and tree. A dark wave of hair kept falling over her brow in the wind, and Juliet’s stomach clenched. “Not like this,” she replied, too glad to care that she’d been caught.

Kit was leaping about in the wet sand, trying to keep from being caught by each incoming wave, and delighting over every small creature she encountered, calling Dawsey over to examine each one.

As hard as Juliet might have had to work to win her over initially, Dawsey so clearly already held a dear and unimpeachable place in Kit’s heart. Kit spent the day attached to her side and lap and arm more or less interchangeably. The night previous, Kit had collapsed in Dawsey’s arms as drowsy as a kitten. It was touching to see the depth of trust on display, Kit giving herself over entirely to Dawsey as only a child can. 

Juliet wondered, of course, about the relationship and where Elizabeth was and why Kit should be living with Dawsey instead - but then she knew firsthand the new families the war made. The people it pulled apart and pushed together, and the new ways of living they all had to find, or make. When she thought of it that way, she didn’t wonder in the least.

-

“No? How did you imagine me, Miss Adams?” Even to her own ears Juliet sounded flirtatious, an echo of the way she’d once teased Mark when he said he couldn’t imagine her shut up alone in a room, writing away. And although she was teasing, as soon as the words left her lips Juliet knew that despite the joke, she desperately wanted to know - especially since Dawsey had seemed so bashful about the admission as soon as she’d said it.

Juliet thought of Dawsey receiving her first letter, holding it in her hands - and she wanted to know what she had made of her, then and now. 

“Tweed hunting skirt…” Dawsey began, catching Juliet’s eye with a twinkle in her own, and although Juliet laughed alongside her, she felt strangely disappointed.

Surely Dawsey hadn’t thought of their early messages in only this way! To think that Dawsey might have been laughing at her letters, or that Juliet had been the only one of them caught on something - her heart sank. 

Dawsey buried her smile in her glass of beer, as though she wasn’t sure she wanted Juliet to see it, at least not head-on. And, just as quickly as she’d despaired, Juliet felt herself soar back up again - a deflection, then. Or a misdirection, or a funny canvas hung up to cover something on the wall behind.

She couldn’t be sure, of course. But she could be brave.

“And you - who was the pig farmer you sent books to?” Dawsey’s eyes were warm and curious across the table.

“I did have a couple of ideas,” Juliet said airily, although just then she couldn’t think of a single one other than the woman who sat across from her.

Oh, she so wanted to take refuge in the banter they had going: pretend she had pictured Dawsey as seven feet tall, or as an heiress gone into hiding in an elaborate disguise. But she had to know - Juliet had to let her know. She couldn’t let Dawsey think that this - that they - were an incongruity, a mismatch of expectations and reality. That she felt about her any way other than the way she did. For it struck her that it would be the worst thing, somehow, to feel so full and wonderful and be alone in that feeling. Juliet took a deep breath.

“But it was more of a sense,” she said, feeling her pulse jump in her wrist as she did so, “That I was writing to someone who already understood me. Who I didn’t have to explain myself to, much.” 

Dawsey’s lips parted, and Juliet felt again that sense of instant recognition between them that had been there from the very beginning. That pull, as though a hand was coming down on her shoulder to let her know she should pay attention, that this was important. She could no longer hear the noise of the pub or feel the jostle of bodies around them: there was only Dawsey opposite her, breathing the same air she breathed, the moment suspended between them. 

Finally, Dawsey lifted the corner of her mouth in a wry smile and raised her half pint.

“How many of these have you had?”

Juliet was thankful she’d broken the moment, but this time she wasn’t disappointed by the deflection of honesty for easy laughter, because this time she recognized it for what it was. _Got you,_ she thought. and felt a small thrill of triumph for knowing Dawsey too had known her straight away. 

-

**From Juliet to Sidney  
16th June 1946**

Dear Sidney;

I cannot believe I ever thought I would pop over to Guernsey for a book club meeting and a day of gathering background for a newspaper article - the idea seems so childish now, so silly. I’m sure you knew at the time that the trip would be no such thing, wise as you are. And of course I didn’t listen to you even for one second, me being who I am.

And speaking of that wisdom, I require a little more of it. I know we’ve spoken on the phone practically every other day but oh, how I wish you were here with me! Even you, the urbanophile, couldn’t help but love it here. I’m sure of it.

As much as I’m learning about the Occupation and the lives of the islanders throughout the war, I find I’m learning just as much about myself. Or rather, uncovering things I suppose I already knew but that had gone unexamined. In my defense, you’ve kept my calendar rather busy, and in some ways it feels as though I started a steeplechase during the war and never stopped riding. Filling my days with writing and speaking, my evenings with parties and dates, trying so hard to keep moving.

Now that I have finally slowed down, all the other horses in the race have caught up with me at once. (Don’t admonish me for the poor metaphor as we both know I’m capable of better but I’m in, as I’m sure you’ve gathered by now, rather a tizzy.) 

It feels unimaginably selfish, to be in the middle of such a terrible story with such tragic consequences that is nowhere near ending and to be caught up in my own feelings about it. And yet I can’t help it: I care for them all so deeply. Their regard for each other, their protectiveness of one another: it’s infectious. I feel as though I’ve been drawn into a circle to which I’ve always belonged, and I want so badly to help them.

And of course, as you’ve now doubt guessed, that feeling goes deeper still. Oh, I hardly even know what to say! Even to you, who understands and knows already - I’m scared of myself, a little. Of the things I feel. Of what happens when we’re together.

“A tizzy” only begins to describe it. I’ve never needed one of your stern talking-tos more! Please say you’ll hector me, before I work myself into a lather.

Yours still leaping over fences,

Juliet

-

“I should have nailed her to the floor.” Dawsey’s jaw worked as she remembered, caught in that last moment in her yard with Elizabeth. Juliet suspected that in some ways she always would be.

Her heart ached, and she wanted to go to her. “It’s unfair,” Juliet said, stumbling over the words, wishing there were something she could say. “An impossible choice. For both of you.”

“War makes monsters of us all, I suppose,” Dawsey replied bitterly. Her eyes were glassy, fixed on some unseen point.

“No,” Juliet said at once, surprising Dawsey and herself. She stepped closer. “Dawsey - that’s the absolute last thing it makes you.”

She could tell Dawsey didn’t believe the words but still needed to hear someone say them. 

“There’s no - there’s no good way for that story to end. There’s no other solution you could have found. They put you all in such an atrocity.” She swallowed.

“If only she hadn’t had such a -” Juliet was nearly positive it was a swear word or several that Dawsey choked back. “Such a heart.” She shook her head, her dark eyes full of grief. “It would have been better for her.”

Juliet found that she was somehow holding one of Dawsey’s hands in her own - it was warm and tense, with fine bones and rough callouses. “Yes,” she agreed sadly, feeling a wave of sadness and yearning sweep over her for this woman she might never meet. “But how much worse for the rest of us.”

She squeezed Dawsey’s hand, trying to convey all the things she didn’t know how to say. Grief, and compassion, and sorrow, and faith. And the things there are no words for. 

-

Life continued for the Islanders in a way it didn’t for Juliet, whose only theoretical task was a writing assignment she couldn’t work on, and as a consequence she passed many an hour with Kit, whose grateful caregivers had more than enough work of their own. Dawsey in particular seemed to be in high demand. Juliet didn’t know how she did it with her own farm to run, but couldn’t fault others for spotting the steady competence Dawsey wore as plain as the sky wore the clouds.

A neighbour’s sheep turned up down the road so Dawsey went off to help repair the fence; a stream broke its banks so a bridge had to be reinforced; a cache of stolen goods was found and Dawsey was called to oversee an inventory; Mrs Leighton and her son both came down with the flu so Dawsey took over their milking for a week.

Julie was fascinated by the wide range of topics on which Dawsey seemed to be the widely-acknowledged expert. Her supremacy in matters of porcine husbandry was to be expected, but Dawsey was called upon from matters ranging from manual labour and engineering to diplomacy and interpersonal disputes.

She would have quite enjoyed watching Dawsey wade into these problems with the sleeves on her worn jumpers rolled past her surprisingly delicate wrists, her wide brow furrowed with that same persistent lock flopped across it, but Juliet was also more than happy to fill the gap with Kit.

“Don’t even think about it - no apology necessary! I’d be thrilled to,” she said, taking Kit’s hand as a panting teenager leaned against the fence waiting for an apologetic Dawsey to accompany him to consult on a half-collapsed barn roof.

Kit insisted on a detour to check on a spot they’d observed two Peregrine Falcons four days previous - no sightings today, but they continued the rhyme they’d been writing about the birds nonetheless. “The falcon sings,” Kit trilled breathlessly as they skipped up the path, trying to hop only on tree roots and stones.

“And bells will ring,” Juliet joined in.

“And they’ll take wing,” they both sang. “Or I won’t bring my cakes and things!”

“We need a new verse every day,” Juliet said, clinging to a branch to avoid stepping off the tree root she was stranded on. “What else rhymes, Kit?”

“Ummm… strings!” Kit appeared to give the matter serious thought. “No, wait - kings!”

“They’ll pull out all my apron strings!” Juliet tried it on for size and Kit collapsed into giggles.

"No!"

“No? You don’t think they could if they tried?” They passed the rest of the way back to the farm debating the likelihood of a falcon applying its talons to various kitchen implements.

They filled up the pigs’ water bucket before traipsing inside the farmhouse to wash their hands and have a few pieces of the cheese that Amelia had pressed into Dawsey’s hands the day before. Kit stared dreamily out the kitchen window, absently humming the rhyme as Juliet picked a few stray leaves out of her duckfluff hair. 

“My mummy can sing,” she declared, and Juliet felt her hands still.

“Oh? Is she very good?” Juliet tried to keep her voice light despite the lump in her throat. She tried so hard to share the Society’s optimism about Elizabeth but found she couldn’t quite believe that one day she’d step off a boat in the port. It seemed less and less likely the more she knew.

“Oh yes,” Kit said, very solemnly. “She sings very beautifully.”

“What does she sing?”

Kit’s jaw firmed in concentration for several moments. “I don’t remember,” she said after a moment, her brow crumpling.

Juliet couldn’t bear it. “And what about Dawsey? Does she sing?”

Kit's lip stopped wobbling and she launched straight into it, trilling at a high volume and flinging herself into the chair to singsong at Juliet. “Levant irage! Levant irage!”

“Lé vent érage et la née a tché,” came in a low, rough voice from the door.

Dawsey had her arms spread across the entryway, regarding them both with an inscrutable look. Sawdust clung to her jumper and sweat gleamed across her collarbone. The late afternoon sun cast a warm glow around her strong figure and Juliet felt nearly as enraptured as Kit was by her entrance. She couldn't look away from Dawsey's eyes, which were fixed on her own with an intensity Juliet didn't know how to match. The kitchen felt warm and close around them.

“Ah, s’tu m’ôimes ouvre l’hus - ch’est mé!” Kit joined in clumsily but with a high degree of enthusiasm on the final syllable before Dawsey ducked her head, suddenly bashful. Juliet felt as though she was going to overflow, suddenly - as though she were holding too much of something inside.

“It’s Guernésais,” Dawsey explained, two pink spots high on her cheeks. “An old poem.” 

She swung Kit up on her hip as though she weighed no more than one of the lambs she’d helped with the month before, and spoke a few quick words that Juliet’s school French could somewhat follow if not precisely translate.

Kit sighed in contentment, her blonde temple resting against Dawsey’s dark one, a rhyme and a song missing their metre but holding each other for a moment.

-

Juliet had to call Mark to ask him to look for Elizabeth, and she was surprised to find herself so hesitant to do it. Not to ask him to put some resources into a search - she had no qualms about that, and would have got on the phone ring or no ring. But it felt wrong, or somehow sneaky, to put Mark to work and feel as though she couldn’t tell him everything that had happened to her. Somehow she knew he wouldn't understand, and that she couldn't explain anyway.

That was a clue, she knew. That wasn’t something to move directly past. If she owed anything to Mark, after all, it was honesty. But it made no sense: Mark was still wonderful, still kind and sharp and generous and good for a laugh. And after all, there wasn’t anything to tell, was there? Just a sinking feeling she didn’t want to acknowledge. An absence of Mark-ness and an abundance of - well, of something else.

-

_From Juliet to Dawsey  
30th June 1946_

Dear Dawsey;

I hope you are all doing well. Or as well as possible - obviously you’re not doing well, you’ll none of you be well again, what a positively grotesque thing to say. You’ve all been shattered and I stuck my nose in and mistook myself for one of you even though I 

_From Juliet to Isola  
1st July 1946_

Dear Isola;

I’m sorry not for telling you about Mark sooner, and I feel a right fool for not telling the rest of them. It simply hadn’t come up and I certainly wasn’t expecting him to turn up out of the blue, and I feel a bit as though I’ve intruded. Please tell Dawsey I

_From Juliet to Dawsey  
3rd July 1946_

Dear Dawsey;

Please tell Kit I miss her, and of course the rest of you too. I came to care for you all so deeply, and you cannot imagine how sorry I am to leave you all and in such a way. I wish I could have

_From Juliet to Dawsey  
5th July 1946_

Dear Dawsey;

I felt it too. I have to tell you. I couldn’t bear it if you thought you were the only one. I know it doesn’t look it and you’d be entirely right to think me a flight and a cad but I swear I didn’t know Mark was coming and I meant to tell you and I don’t even know why I didn’t. Except of course I do, I knew the moment I met you, it was the only thing I knew for certain, the only

**From Juliet to Sidney  
5th July 1946**

Sidney;

Please take away my typewriter before I do something rash! Yes, _more_ rash! I beg of you! Bust down my door and pry it from my hands no matter how I beg. Don’t listen to a word I say, just take it and give it to a school or a nunnery or a group of monkeys feeling particularly Shakespearean, I don’t care! Take my pens and my pencils and all my paper and the wallpaper too, just to be safe. Only stop me from typing myself into these infernal circles.

What am I to do???

Yours,  
Juliet 

**From Sidney to Juliet  
6th July 1946**

I will do no such thing, and I feel certain no group of monkeys would take the thing after all you’ve no doubt subjected it to.

You know what to do. You’ll use that typewriter the way you always have and the way I know you can.

Love and a kick in the pants,  
Sidney

-

The moment her feet left the gangplank for solid stone, Juliet stepped swiftly to the side out of the way of the other disembarking passengers and stood still, closing her eyes and inhaling deeply. Seaweed and fish and no limit to the bounteous warm air filled her nose and her lungs. And another scent, too - clean sweat and wood shavings and Isola’s sharp floral soap. Something dear and familiar, twining around Juliet’s perfume and the smell of salt.

“Do they not have air in London?”

Juliet smiled without opening her eyes, feeling Dawsey step into the space next to her, her voice mingling with the sounds of the sea and the harbour. She didn’t need to see to feel Dawsey’s reassuring solidity, the warm roughness of her palm against Juliet’s. She could picture the same swoop of hair falling into Dawsey’s eyes just so, the set of her jaw and the softness of her eyes. She let herself picture it all for a moment: meeting those eyes every morning and lifting her hand to brush the curl away. The sounds of birds calling and a child's bright laughter in the background. A hand in hers, their clothes folded together, their books pressed cover to cover on the shelf. A garden, perhaps. Another kiss like the one they’d shared in London, Dawsey’s breath against her cheek and her mouth knowing Juliet perfectly. And another after that. Her stomach swooped in anticipation and she felt her lips curl upward involuntarily, her hand squeezing Dawsey’s.

“Not like this,” she said.


End file.
